Life as a student is more than just courses.

How do you want to be represented?

There are some important decisions on the table at the SAGM, including one that proposes to change the composition of the UVSS Board of Directors. Come out to have your say about how you want to be represented!

We believe life as a student is about so much more than just courses. That’s why the UVSS provides so many kinds of services, advocacy, and supports for all undergraduate students.

(For example: your health & dental plan, bus pass, we have a Food Bank & Free Store, a Peer Support Centre, five amazing advocacy groups that support specific constituencies, and we all work together to advocate for student housing affordability and protections, for hybrid learning options at UVic, for lower International Student tuition, and so so much more!)

We want to ensure that the UVSS remains representative, diverse, democratic, fair, and focused on serving students well — and that means seeing students as whole beings, not reducing students’ experience to being just part of a department or faculty.

The UVSS is run by students, for students. We want to ensure the UVSS can continue to represent you and ALL of your needs, in the classroom and beyond.

Please come out to the SAGM to have your say in how your students’ society can best represent and serve you!

There is a motion that will be decided on at the SAGM that relates to UVSS governance and representation. The motion proposes to change the composition of the UVSS Board and how elections would function.

The motion was put forward by members through a petition which met the threshold of having 1% of the student body sign in support (around 190 students).

This member-submitted motion (MOTION 2022/02/17: 02 – ABUELAZM) has not been endorsed by the UVSS Board. As an elected body of representatives, the UVSS Board of Directors has concerns and questions about this proposal.

The UVSS Board of Directors is in support of seeking out opportunities to strengthen good governance, diversity, and representation on the UVSS Board of Directors. But we do not support this current proposal, and we want to let our membership know why. 

What is the proposal exactly?

You can read the full text of the proposal on our SAGM agenda (see MOTION 2022/02/17: 02 – ABUELAZM). 

The proposal seeks to replace 9 of the 11 current UVSS Director at Large Positions with Faculty Director positions that correspond with the Faculties at UVic, as follows: 

  • Director of Business Student Relations,
  • Director of Education Student Relations,
  • Director of Engineering and Computer Science Student Relations,
  • Director of Fine Arts Student Relations,
  • Director of Human & Social Development Student Relations,
  • Director of Humanities Student Relations,
  • Director of Law Student Relations,
  • Director of Science Student Relations, and
  • Director of Social Sciences Student Relations

This means that running (and presumably voting) for UVSS Directors would be limited to Faculties.

What does UVSS Governance and Board structure look like currently?

The UVSS Board currently comprises 22 Director positions: 5 Lead Directors, 1 Director of International Student Relations, 5 Advocacy Group representatives, and 11 Director at Large positions. 

All members of the UVSS are eligible to vote for any these positions (with the exception of the Advocacy Group representatives, which are elected in by the respective Advocacy Groups and their membership), and any member can run for these positions (with the exception of Advocacy Group representatives, and the Director of International Student Relations, who must be an international student). 

The Director at Large positions are a very important way for students to get involved in the governance of their society and contribute to the varieties of initiatives the board undertakes. Directors at Large commit to a portfolio, working with the Lead Director of that portfolio: Campaigns, Events, Member Outreach, Student Affairs, Finance & Operations, and International Student Relations. Directors at Large contribute to the work in that portfolio area, and beyond, working on initiatives such as: 

  • Advocacy campaigns that relate to the classroom and beyond:
    • Academic oriented advocacy: TextbookBroke advocating for open educational resources, Access4All advocating for hybrid learning options at UVic, advocating for lower International Student tuition fees, and more.
    • Student life advocacy: Rent with Rights, Let’s Get Consensual, ReThink Mental Health, Make Transit Work, Divest UVic, and much more
  • Fun and informative events, like Campus Kick Off, Pancake Breakfast, the Learning Allyship & Solidarity Book Club, and more.
  • Helping support the variety of Clubs, Course Unions, and Professional Development Unions.
  • Operating the Student Union Building, including its 9 social enterprise business, study spaces for students, and ensuring sustainability of our building.
  • Attending to the finances of the UVSS, providing a health & dental plan and discounted bus pass, and more.
  • Supporting the UVSS services, which are initiatives of the Board: the Food Bank & Free Store, and the Peer Support Centre. 
  • Supporting and collaborating with the advocacy and affiliated groups at the UVSS. 
  • Engaging with UVSS members (that’s you!) about UVSS initiatives and activities, and what you’d like to see, through classroom talks, tabling on campus, social media, and a variety of print and digital marketing and communications formats

As you might see from this list, there are so many opportunities for Directors at Large to get involved depending on their priorities and what students have elected them to do! These activities are not limited to whatever faculty they may belong to, and they play a big role in supporting students.

Additionally, Directors at Large are responsible for holding Lead Directors accountable in their portfolio areas. Meaning we work together on initiatives that come our way, run logistics together, review letters and policies, or just brainstorm together. Any student is any faculty can do this, so long as they are passionate about being a student representative and leader! 

What are the UVSS Board concerns about this proposal? 

Please don’t get us wrong, we are in support of seeking out opportunities to strengthen good governance, diversity, and representation on the UVSS Board of Directors — that’s exactly what we want to do. But we do not believe this proposal will serve these goals well at this time. 

Changes to the governance structure of the UVSS can have a major impact on how the UVSS is able to serve and represent students, so we want to ensure that any changes are well considered and have a strong evidence base to suggest they will help us be more effective in achieving our mission of enhancing the student experience and building a campus community that embodies our values (decolonization, social justice, environmental sustainability, good

governance, excellence, and fun). That is why we are undertaking a governance review (see below).

We are concerned that this proposal may actually be detrimental to diversity and representation on the UVSS Board. How so?

This proposal would limit students’ opportunities for their student representation.

  • Most Director positions are currently open to any student who would like to put their name forward. This gives students at large an opportunity to select the candidates they believe represent them the best. Right now, all undergrad students have the opportunity to vote on 16 representatives. Under the current proposal, this would be reduced to voting on 5 Lead Directors, 2 Directors at Large, and then presumably just one Faculty representative.

This proposal puts up more barriers to students running as a director.

  • The UVSS has been working hard to make running in UVSS Elections more accessible and fair, and this proposal would counteract that by creating new limits on who is eligible to run. (See below for what changes the UVSS has made.)
  • Specifically, this proposal limits people running  for faculty director positions to those who are “officially declared in the faculty they seek to represent.” What about those who are undeclared or pursuing multidisciplinary degrees? What about students who decide to switch their studies during or after their election campaign?

Faculty representation does not fully represent the whole student experience, which is what the UVSS is here for.

  • There is so much more to being a student than just courses. The UVSS is here for all of the things that have an impact on student life.
  • UVic already has a governance structure that has student representation based on faculties: the Senate.
    • The UVSS is entirely separate from UVic and should not be beholden to its structures.
    • The Senate often faces difficulties in recruiting representatives in all of the faculties. In the most recent Senate elections, only 9 of the 16 positions were filled.

We are concerned that this proposal will work against adequate and diversity representation.

  • There are currently a diversity of perspectives on the board — even when it comes to this motion, to be quite honest. We all have our personal perspectives.
  • It’s not that there’s one unified perspective of the board, but we work hard to work together, to find places of agreement, to move action forward, to ensure that these actions are in line with representing and supporting students — what we are here to do.
  • The UVSS Board’s current diversity isn’t just limited to diversity of faculty or major.  Our board members also bring a diversity of lived experience, which is very important in ensuring we can represent the diversity of students at UVic.
  • We are concerned that this proposal, and its barriers to students running and voting on representation, would actually reduce the diversity of representation on the UVSS Board.
  • Further, given that faculties at UVic have different sizes, and different resources and opportunities, one representative per faculty does not proportionately and adequately represent students.

What recent changes has the UVSS made to make elections more fair and accessible for students?

The UVSS has made a number of changes over the past couple of years to make elections more accessible and fair for students, including the following:

Changed Electoral Policy to get rid of slates, meaning that any student can run – it doesn’t matter who you know or don’t know.
We have set a budget of $50 for each person running so that money isn’t a barrier for any student running. They have access to those funds to run their campaign. And that is a hard limit, so that candidates cannot spend more than that, making it more fair.
We have been doin

g lots of social media outreach, both to encourage students to run as well as encourage students to vote in both the referenda and elections.
We’ve held Open House events so that students can drop in with any questions they may have about running to be a director, or being a director.
We’ve used all of our communications platforms, and also we have worked with UVic (email messages, classroom talks, brightspace, digicasters across campus, posters, social media accounts) to make sure that we reach every undergraduate.

So does the UVSS Board just want to keep things exactly the way they are? Or does the UVSS Board think its structure needs an update?

The UVSS Board is in support of seeking out opportunities to strengthen good governance, diversity, and representation on the UVSS Board of Directors. That’s exactly why we are undertaking a governance review.

We have issued a Request for Proposals for a Governance Review. We are seeking an independent third party with expertise in student governance, equity, diversity, and inclusion, and/or the non-profit sector. This will allow us to have a holistic, comprehensive, and evidence-based understanding of what board structure could most effectively support us. We want to find the best way to achieve our mission of enhancing the student experience and building a campus community that embodies our values (decolonization, social justice, environmental sustainability, good governance, excellence, and fun).

We think making this decision carefully and with expertise is the best option!